--- title: Here are the Meanest Tweets Obama Didn't Read on Jimmy Kimmel description: President Obama read mean tweets about himself on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," but he's actually heard far worse. canonical: https://time.com/3744049/barack-obama-mean-tweets/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-13T16:41:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:47:53.976Z article:section: Politics og:title: The Meanest Tweets Obama Didn't Read og:description: President Obama read mean tweets on Jimmy Kimmel. But he's had worse. og:url: https://time.com/3744049/barack-obama-mean-tweets/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd385ed4ff0b413f/6987837f524fc074e0dece3e/466026710.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: 466026710 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Meanest Tweets Obama Didn't Read twitter:description: President Obama read mean tweets on Jimmy Kimmel. But he's had worse. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd385ed4ff0b413f/6987837f524fc074e0dece3e/466026710.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Meanest Tweets Obama Didn't Read  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 13, 2015 4:41 PM UTC  Barack Obama on Jimmy Kimmel Live Barack Obama on Jimmy Kimmel LiveRandy Holmes  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 13, 2015 4:41 PM UTC **Correction appended, March 13** Keeping with a tradition on the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show, President Obama read mean tweets about himself Thursday night. But compared to what he’s gotten from Congress, the tweets were fairly tame. Obama himself made that point. “I have to say, those weren’t that mean,” he told Kimmel after the segment. “I’ve gotta tell you, you should see what the Senate says about me all the time.” For example: After the _Charlie Hebdo_ terror attacks in France, Obama was criticized for not going there to show his support. Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber [tweeted](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/01/13/texas-congressman-randy-weber-says-obama-is-basically-worse-than-hitler/): “Even Adolph \[sic\] Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn’t do it for right reasons.” Weber later deleted the tweet and [apologized.](http://weber.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/representative-randy-weber-issues-statement-on-paris-tweet) But it wasn’t the first time. In a [series of other tweets](http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/gop-congressman-tweets-about-socialist-dictator-obama-ahead#.debGn8Rd5) from January 2014, Weber called Obama the “Kommandant-in-Chief,” a “socialist dictator” and suggested that POTUS stands for “Poor Obama Trashed U.S.” Some of the tweets aren’t so much mean as they are cutting in good sport. After Obama joked during the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2013 that Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell wouldn’t be a good drinking buddy, [McConnell tweeted ](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/mcconnell-responds-obama-jab-twitter-photo-article-1.1330532)a picture of himself having a beer with an empty chair for Obama, complete with a glass of red wine and the message “Greetings from Coal Country!” And sometimes the mean tweets are friendly fire. Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur once jokingly [tweeted (and deleted)](http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/297793-kaptur-in-deleted-tweet-obama-is-the-worst-socialist-ever) as the stock market hit a now high that Obama was the “worst socialist ever.” Still, most of the meanest tweets come from off Capitol Hill. Businessman Donald Trump is a serial offender when it comes to saying mean things about Obama. Here he is blaming Obama for a bad call in the Super Bowl: > [](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/562103501237813249) And there’s this: > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/537157586316165120) And this: > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/439351077960695808) Even KitchenAid, a company that makes kitchen appliances, accidentally tweeted something mean about Obama. In 2012 someone [tweeting for the company posted](http://mashable.com/2012/10/03/kitchen-aid-obama-dead-grandma/) about the president’s grandmother, who died before he took office, “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics.” The company swiftly apologized for the tweet. ### See Photos of Barack Obama in College  Chance Encounter In 1980, when Obama was a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles, he was approached by an aspiring photographer named Lisa Jack, who asked him if he would be willing to pose for some black and white photographs that she could use in her portfolio. Lisa Jack  Handsome Of her first meeting (in a campus eatery) with Obama, Jack remembers only that "He was really cute. But what else does a 20-year-old girl remember?" Lisa Jack  Styled In the photos, Jack says, "You can see he is just posing, initially, but as the shoot goes on, he starts to come out. He was very charismatic even then." Lisa Jack  Prop Jack never realized her dream of becoming a photographer and is now a psychologist. Lisa Jack  Pose Jack and Obama would see each other only a few more times while students. But in 2005, while on a tour, she spotted Obama on Capitol Hill and yelled hello. "He knew exactly who I was after all this time," Jack says. "I was amazed." Lisa Jack  Doubt On a dare from a skeptical friend, Jack decided to track down her negatives from the shoot. Lisa Jack  Searcher Initially, before she dug the film out from her basement, Jack never thought her pictures would have much life beyond her own darkroom. Lisa Jack  Smile When she found them, the images of Obama "blew me away," she says. "I had no idea I'd taken a whole roll of film." Lisa Jack  Charm For a while, Jack put the negatives in a safety-deposit box, so that they could not be used until after the election, when there would be no chance they could be used for a political purpose.  Thoughtful Today, Jack says, she hopes the photos reveal a "spirit of fun and thoughtfulness." Lisa Jack  The Man Who Would Be President "I'm not political," Jack says, "(But) these are historic photos and they should be shared." Lisa Jack **Correction**: The original version of this story incorrectly described a series of tweets by Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber. 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